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Privatization of Prisons: Pros and Cons

Kasım Karagöz,Zafer HASANOV

I. Introduction

The tendency of the growing number of inmates and prisons required to maintain these criminals has increased the concern on behalf of the government and gained attention of the public, over the last decades, regarding the issue of financing prisons and prison operation services for lower cost and better quality (Lukemeyer & McCorkle, 2006). The census data designates that, currently, there are more than 2.3 million inmates in the US prisons (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008) which is considered to be respectively more than in other developed world countries (Campo & McFerson, 2008; Bowman, Hakim, & Seidenstat, 1996). As the number of the inmates continues to grow the cost of the maintaining correctional facilities and service provision also increases. Hence, the money of the taxpayers spent for prison provision becomes more politically visible (Johnston, 1990). Public is more interested in demanding punitive punishments but less willing to finance prisons and prison services which require big amount taxpayers’ money (Lukemeyer & McCorkle, 2006; Jewkes & Johnston, 2006). Therefore, public executives face the challenge of doing more for less and being more efficient and effective while building, maintaining, operating, and financing prisons (Shichor, 1998).

The overcrowd problem of prison population, economical and financial burden of prison maintenance, political environment of the free-market solutions, arguments regarding establishing effective and efficient provision of public services via market competition are some of the crucial factors which enhance the tendency toward outsourcing of prison system and services either partially or completely, and to rely more on private contractors(Johnston, 1990; Moore, 1998). Government has been actively seeking alternatives for agrowing incarceration problem, which has yet to be resolved. Some states have been implementing different strategies such as community based institutions, home confinement, etc. to alleviate the issue of overpopulation but these alternatives are successful in short-term period and can cope with only small proportion of convicted criminals. Government still experiences the need for additional jails and correctional facilities (Moore, 1998).

Privatization is considered as one of the choices for coping with continuously growing challenge of prison management and improvement of government operations (Johnston, 1990). In general, outsourcing of prison system refers to transferring governments’ functions of owning, maintaining, building, and operating public prisons to private institutions and relying on private sector, which operate for profit, in delivering public services and satisfying public need (Jewkes & Johnston, 2006; Ogle, 1999). Literature and previously done researches draw attention on different reasons and outlines significant rationales which act as the main basis for advocacy and argument of prison privatization. Proponents of privatization emphasize a variety of causes for favoring outsourcing due to: ideology that government cannot effectively deliver required services; that privatization brings relatively more flexibility and innovation in the management of prison system and service provision; affirmative perspectives regarding free-market competition which may spur the cost effectiveness and quality boost of service delivery; psychological dislike of the government, etc. (Freiberg, 1999). However, the focal general premise behind the privatization of the correctional institutions and consideration for policymakers, administrators, and citizens for outsourcing prison system and services to private entities is the argument that private contractors can deliver services for better quality, lower operational costs, and more flexibly than that of government agencies (Shichor, 1998; Lukemeyer & McCorkle, 2006; Perrone & Pratt, 2003; Pratt & Maahs, 1999; Bowman, Hakim, & Seidenstat, 1996; Mays & Gray, 1996).